Big Data analytics holds out the promise to change everything about marketing. From next-best-offer to cross-sell and up-sell, the insights gleaned from Big Data and Big Data analytics will allow Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) to back up long years of experience and gut instinct with data-driven decision making that will lower costs and improve outcomes on every dollar spent.

"We are just starting to see the results among early adopters, and they are very positive" says Jim Gallo, a Big Data expert at ICC. "Big Data is giving these marketers an edge over their competition because they are able to reach their customers in ways that are more meaningful and timely with the right offers at the right time."

For most CMOs, however, Big Data are two words on a page, and what matters is what it can do for their organizations. Do they want to improve their customer experience and engagement? Improve loyalty? How about leveraging existing customers to turn prospects into clients? What about growing the top line, increasing share of wallet or entering new markets? Big Data can help to do that and much more.

Big Data analytics allows marketers to segment their prospects and customers into micro-targeted groups based on behavior, not just demographics or transaction histories. Sentiment analysis from social media can combine with CRM data, for example, to create a more holistic view of customer lifetime value and improve cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

"While off-the-shelf solutions from vendors like IBM, Oracle or SAP look very complete, they still require integration before they can work in a specific environment," says Gallo. "The good news is, no one has to reinvent how to do Big Data from a technology point of view. It just requires a commitment to get the work done."

Five Step Process for Marketers to Get Started Using Big Data
Big Data isn't so much about technology as it is about addressing business problems to gain competitive advantage. Getting started isn't all that different from any large-scale technology-dependent project. Gallo notes these five steps as a way to begin:

1. Be strategic. Figure out the business case. What is it marketers want to know that they don't know today? What are the goals they want to achieve? Improve customer experience? Increase customer retention? Gain more visibility into customer behavior? Understand the analysis of their marketing campaigns? All of these are solid Big Data use cases.2. Get tactical. Figure out what questions need to be asked in order to address these issues. Where are the pain points that, if alleviated, will allow a marketer to achieve strategic objectives? 3. Understand where the data will come from. Do you just need to break down internal data silos or do you need to bring in outside sources like weather or sentiment data to achieve your objectives? Is the data from the marketing applications integrated with other systems? Finding the right data is key to any Big Data initiative because the old IT expression "garbage in, garbage out" still holds true, often on a much larger scale.4. Get executive buy-in. Without backing from the highest levels of the organization, any Big Data initiative will struggle against a vast pool of competing projects and priorities. Marketers can argue effectively today that their Big Data initiatives should become a top priority. Find the use cases to back up your position. They exist.5. Locate the right people. This is perhaps the most challenging of all: finding the people inside and outside of the organization who can help pull together the resources to deploy a proof-of-concept project for Big Data. If need be, you can leverage infrastructure available in the cloud, but you must understand how to bring together all of the various elements that make up a Big Data solution and this takes talent that is increasingly hard to find these days.

"Finding talent may be the hardest part of Big Data today," says Gallo. "The technologies and techniques have been around for many years to tackle Big Data. Moore's Law, the Internet and social and mobile platforms have converged to put the power of analytics in the hands of everyone, not just the deep-pocket elite, and this is driving demand for data specialists like never before."

- Looking for an IT provider savvy enough to assist with your Big Data challenge? ICC has developed a complementary white paper detailing Five Practical Questions for Starting a Big Data Initiative at http://bit.ly/icc-resources

About ICC
ICC (Information Control Company), based in Columbus, Ohio, is a leading provider of enterprise technology solutions. With a staff over 500 highly trained consultants, we are experts in Strategy, User Experience, Visual Design, Engineering, Project Management, Business Analytics and Quality Assurance. Using these skills, we develop and deploy innovative, business-critical solutions that enable Fortune 500 and mid-market organizations to improve operational efficiencies. Our Business, Digital and Technology solutions give our clients a competitive advantage that helps them drive revenues and increase margin.

ICC is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and an IBM Premier Business Partner. Clients include Nationwide, Cardinal Health, McGraw Hill, the State of Ohio, and Honda.

ICC is committed to serving its clients, community and country by developing U.S.-based leaders who work hard to strengthen the American economy. More information is available at http://www.icctechnology.com.